Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Coming Aug. 2

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07/12 23:06

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 phone will be announced at an event on Aug. 2, according to invitations Samsung released today.

The official invite confirms a leak from SamMobile last month. The invite's design is different from last month's leak, though, focusing on the Galaxy Note's characteristic pen rather than the presumed curved screen.

SamMobile suggested the new phone will have a 5.8-inch quad-HD display with a curved screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 823 processor, and USB-C. Qualcomm has not announced a processor called Snapdragon 823, although this week it announced a Snapdragon 821, a slightly faster and more power-efficient version of the Snapdragon 820 used in Samsung's popular Galaxy S7 phone.

The rumorsphere is a bit confused about the Galaxy Note 7 at the moment; aside from the S Pen, we've been hearing about either a 5.7- or 5.8-inch display, curved or not; either 4GB or 6GB of RAM; IP68 water resistance; an iris scanner; and a MicroSD slot. GottaBeMobile has a good rumor rundown. It's most likely that the Galaxy Note 7 will at least have features on par with the Galaxy S7, which means water resistance, a better 12-megapixel camera, and a MicroSD card slot. Those are all advances over the existing Galaxy Note 5.

The Galaxy Note 7 comes at a good time for Samsung. The Galaxy S7 outsold the Galaxy S6 in its first few months of release, and between the two of them, Apple and Samsung now control 91 percent of the US postpaid smartphone market, according to BayStreet Research.

Releasing the Note 7 in August gives it a month's head start over Apple. If Apple follows the patterns it's used in previous years, we'll see new iPhones announced on September 6 or 13. Apple could break its pattern, of course.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is pushing back on a report that questions the effectiveness of an algorithm-based, crime-prediction system officials there have been testing since 2013.The predictive policing program, launched with the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), generates a heat list—or Strategic Subjects List (SSL)—of people the system believes are most likely to kill or be killed.

Wacom wants to make the classic pen and paper a little more high tech.By making pictures and notes drawn and written with a paper and pen uploadable to the cloud, thanks to its new Bamboo Slate, Folio, and Omni.